Orphanage rape case: Karanjule moves HC against death sentence

A month after a local court awarded death penalty to Ramchandra Karanjule for the murder of an inmate and gang rape of five mentally-challenged girls in an orphanage, he has approached the Bombay high court challenging the order.

The sessions court had on March 21 convicted Ramchandra and five others for gang raping five girls, including three minors, at an orphanage run by a private trust Kalyani Mahila Bal Seva Sanstha at Kalamboli in Navi Mumbai.

Ramchandra, the director of the orphanage and the prime accused, was awarded the death penalty after it came to light during the trial that one of the victims, suffering from tuberculosis, had died after she was gang raped.

Two other accused - Khandu Kasbe and Prakash Khadke - were awarded life imprisonment. The orphanage's superintendent Sonali Badade and caretaker were sentenced to ten years in jail and another accused Nanabhau Karanjule was convicted on a lesser charge of molestation and sentenced to two years.

Four other accused - Dhirubhai Limbani, Narendra Mehta, Surekha Karanjule and Kalyani Karanjule - were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

"We have filed an appeal on behalf of Ramchandra Karanjule on April 20 in the high court challenging his death penalty. We are in the process of filing appeals for Sonali Badade and Nanabhau Karanjule," advocate Mahesh Vaswani said.

According to the appeal, the lower court's order was perverse, bad in Law and without application of mind. "There are errors apparent on the face of the said order and the same has caused grave miscarriage of justice to the Appellant and deserves to be quashed and set aside," the appeal states.

It further states that the lower court has placed heavy reliance on the testimony of the complainant in the case which was not corroborated with any other evidence by the prosecution.

The lower court, while awarding the maximum punishment of death to Ramchandra observed that he was a menace to the society and life imprisonment would be highly inadequate.